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On 20 January 2016, CNN Money published an opinion item written by Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of the Chobani brand of strained yogurt. Ulukaya's column posited that an ongoing refugee crisis could be ameliorated with the cooperation of businesses like his: The column included a video segment during which Ulukaya discussed his proposition: WND collated a confusing number of metrics and purported statistics in their response to Ulukaya's article, stating that Twin Falls would receive 300 refugees in 2016 (but not all of them Muslim or involved with Chobani), that 11,000 refugees from the Third World had entered Idaho as a whole since September 2001, and that 989 refugees from unspecified nations had arrived in Boise or Twin Falls in the last year. None of that mish-mash of numbers appeared directly related in any way to Chobani's founder, or to his company's hiring practices (especially given that the company wasn't even founded until four years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks). On 31 March 2016, the author of the WND article contacted us with further information, substantiating that 961 refugees from all nations (including Iraq, Iran, Burma, Russia, and Ukraine) entered Idaho in the calendar year 2015. Breakdowns of the that information by state can be found here: What was particularly notable within the Department of State's refugee records for calendar year 2015 were demographics of people seeking asylum. While rumors claimed that refugees were primarily from Muslim countries (most typically Syria), the vast majority of people asking for asylum in Idaho were not from Muslim countries: In 2015 a scant 28 Syrians (fewer than two percent of Idaho's total) sought asylum in Idaho, despite intense focus on Syria's refugees in the media. By contrast, 611 of the 961 refugees came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Burundi, and the Central African Republic (64 percent of all people settled in Idaho in 2015). Christianity (not Islam) was the primary religion in all but Somalia. Another 137 (14 percent) came from Burma (98) and Bhutan (39), countries that are primarily Buddhist. Removing the 9.7 percent from Somalia, the sum total of refugees from primarily Christian or Buddhist countries alone settling in Idaho in 2015 was 654 (or nearly 70 percent). Another two percent came from non-Muslim countries like Colombia, Russia, and Ukraine; despite the title of the piece, more than two-thirds of the refugees logged in the source material did not come from primarily Muslim countries. Not long after the WND item appeared in January 2016, Facebook users began sharing the above-reproduced image macro reading: As with many rumors of its type, the Chobani rumor evolved to encompass multiple versions inaccurately describing Ulukaya's proposition, intent, and practices, including completely fabricated claims that Ulukaya had vowed to flood the U.S. with Muslims or drown the country in refugees. Some versions of the rumor asserted the CEO imported 300 Muslims per month to the U.S. specifically to work in his Idaho plant, a claim which was difficult to square with immigration math. Per the U.S. Department of State, roughly 21,000 work visas were granted nationwide in each of fiscal years 2013, 2014, and 2015 [PDF]. If the claims about 300 Muslims per month were to be believed 17% of all work visas were going to persons employed by a single yogurt plant in Idaho, irrespective of the fact that business people don't have the authority to grant work visas of any description in the first place. WND appeared to have extrapolated some of their numbers from a 15 January 2016 Financial Times profile of Ulukaya and his efforts to help refugees, which noted that the entire Chobani global workforce was made up of only 600 refugees (of all nationalities and religions): However, initial reporting upon the Idaho yogurt-processing plants facility's opening in 2012 indicated that the plant employed 300 people in total, further calling into question claims that Chobani was placing 300 Muslim refugees per month in that same Idaho plant. Either Chobani was experiencing credulity-testing and unchecked monthly expansion, or the numbers were way off: The claim that Chobani was headquartered in Idaho was also inaccurate. While the brand operates processing facilities in that state, Chobani was founded, and remains headquartered in, New York. It is true that Ulukaya proposed using business employment as a novel approach to a refugee crisis in January 2016. However, claims that he sought to assist only Muslim refugees and was personally importing 300 Muslims per month to work in his Idaho plant were fabrications.
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